RECENT reports suggest that some Barbadian farmers may have found a way to forge a successful business partnership with the flagship West Coast Sandy Lane hotel, and have thereby helped to push the reputation of the top international resort as a superior dining establishment.
Yet, while many continue to sing the virtues of an economy planned on the twin services of tourism and the international financial centre, agriculture seems to occupy a very lowly place in our grand scheme of things.
True, it is still recognised as important, but an unsavoury historical legacy has embedded in so many of us such a dislike for working on and with the land, that we generally fail to recognise agriculture is one of the most revered professions in the world, and that from properly organised and managed farms one can make a reasonable living and career.
The value of this kind of tourism-agriculture linkage is that it is a win-win situation for both parties. For if it is to maintain its stellar reputation, an international hotel like Sandy Lane cannot afford to purchase other than top quality produce for the plates and palates of its most discerning clientele.
And that such high quality ingredients can be produced locally speaks volumes for the skill and husbandry of the producers who have a ready market for their produce.
Executive sous chef Dominic Teague recently explained that Sandy Lane represented the pinnacle in comfort, luxury and service, and therefore it was only natural that its selection of produce lived up to that very high standard.
He disclosed that local farmers provided the hotel with speciality items such as vine ripened tomatoes, home-made mozzarella, pickled okra and pumpkin, and he highlighted the fact that one of the best-sellers in L’Acajou restaurant was fresh goat’s cheese which the hotel made from locally supplied goat’s milk marinated with young vegetables from another local supplier.
It is good to hear of such glowing reports about how local farmers have been able to develop such high quality produce, fit for the finest dining experiences sold by an internationally recognised hotel of excellence.
The question that follows is whether these examples of excellence of produce can be duplicated by other local farmers. We expect that it can be done, for if one or two farmers can do it, then the others not yet of that high standard can achieve similar results by equally enterprising approaches.
But inspiring as these examples might be, there are some major psychological battles to win in convincing enterprising young people that farming is a worthwhile profession. It matters not to them that in Britain farming has always been regarded as one of the most aristocratic of the professions, and indeed that the description of some people as coming from the “landed gentry” is an indication of high societal regard for farmers and farming.
Nor does it matter that in the United States and in other developed countries fortunes are made from the farming business.
One can only hope that more reports of successful partnerships like the one described by Sandy Lane will help to convince more of our citizens that what we call agriculture is really farming, and that farming is big business elsewhere and can be big business here too.
